Tying Lines Together

Again, so the lines follow the characters, or the characters follow the lines. First up is Pram, the Colossus, who is employed as a terraformer despite his wealth. That’s how he enjoys spending his time, turning uninhabitable planets into places where humans and animals can live and breed.

Brett has a separate story line, and we know how Pram and Brett’s paths cross. Now, we also know how Brett and Kimi originally interacted via virtual mail in ‘Returnee’, where Kimi explained their relationship to Brett as Brett coped with being shipwrecked on Earth, his lost memory and malfunctioning Backhand (who insisted on calling him Stephane, which actually made sense later). So that’s all understood. What must be sorted here and now (or sometime in the course of writing this mangled tangle) is what’s going on with Tauren and Kimi? (Keep in mind Tauren’s true identity, which Kimi suspects but can’t yet prove.) (Also keep in mind what Tauren did to Brett, although Brett doesn’t know that – yet, but that’s one of the things he’s to learn – need to define, refine and capture his learning process, too – do a snapshot.) What happens on Kimi’s mission on behalf of Tauren that takes him to Pram in search of Brett? (Oh, does he find out the truth? Interesting thought.)

Last, I must figure out the relationship between humanity’s increasing fear of death (even though they no longer die, because they’re continually resuscitated, thereby causing a proclamation that they’ve now conquered death and space (false and false)) and Tang, and his agenda.

(And what exactly did happen with Tauren? That must be clarified for myself. I need to write a Tauren snapshot. I see the need for several snapshots.)

And the next last is that other piece regarding Brett’s recovered knowledge (about the Willow Glen attack) and how that’s folded into the next sequel. (See, that’s another snapshot.)

What about the diamonds? Good question. Another snapshot is needed about them.

I think I’ll also create a snapshot of the terraforming process Pram follows so those details can be incorporated.

Okay, it’s all becoming clear-er-ish. Time to write like crazy, one more time, and see where these characters and their lines take me.

Giddy up.

Drop That Now

Ready? Here we go.

Up worried about a sick cat. Naturally, that led me to think about time, space and reality.

I was thinking about Now. Now equals Reality for us.

But, I thought, Now does not equal Present. Now is a subset of the Present * Past * Future formula created by common agreement, which forms Reality.

Weirdly, though, as a group (referring only to the subset called humans, and only those ‘presently’ ‘alive’, to keep this simple), we approach Reality in accordance with Zeno’s paradox. Essentially, we’re all traveling toward the same moment, at the same speed (in theory), but we’re coming at it from different distances, because Now = Present * Past * Future. Which means, Now is constantly being reshaped by us as individuals, because we’re always shaping the Present, Past and Future.

Here’s an example for clarification.

You have a friend who is close to you. In a moment of Now, you remember the Past and create a Present by fantasizing a different Future for the two of you, one in which something changed. Perhaps you were close friends and in your fantasy, you’re now lovers. Maybe you were lovers but that ended badly so in your fantasy, you remain close friends and never ruined it by become sexually entangled.

That fantasy, of thinking of a different Past and imagining a different resulting Future, created a new Present. That Present spun off onto its own, to create another Now.

But –

Yeah, there’s always a but. The but here is that a new you exist in that new Now. Yet that new you is also your current, past, present and future you. You are all yous.

In that new Now, you think of your Present circumstances (the moment of Now), and the Past (that you created) to imagine a new Future, which becomes another Present, establishing another New. The ability to ‘hold it together’ mentally is keeping true to one Now, or being adept enough to juggle Nows so that their changing doesn’t disturb you. Most of us struggle with it, because it causes us imbalances from the “That’s not how I remember it,” syndrome, and the unglueing that springs up thinking of all of us Now. You’re remembering different Presents that happen to intersect into one Now, but the Now wasn’t exactly the same for everyone, because of Zeno’s Paradox.

As a fun exercise, imagine Now = Pr (Present) * Pa (Past) * Fu (Future). But Now creates a new Pr. Which means, by our formula, Now has changed, also changing Pa and Fu, establishing a new Pr and a new Now. And essentially, each of these Now is a string connecting us. Conceive of all the strings together and we grasp what it means to be the universe. But that’s only from the current, living aspect of humans, because, since we can imagine and re-imagine new existences, death isn’t a permanent state at all, but only a ‘natural extension’ of one Now.

Yeah, this is all old, the multiverse concepts of ‘everything that can happen, has happened’, with the added dimension that everything that can be remembered (or mis-remembered) can be re-imagined to add to more universes.

Of course, the other kicker is that true constants don’t exist. Time travels only in one direction in our Now, even though we act on it on another level to create other Nows (see above) and the Past is considered immutable (in our Now). Physical dimensions such as agreement on Length and Width also vary by Now, which, of course, are defined by Past * Present * Future. So, too, are constants such as the speed of Light (c) and the Theory of Relativity. They are not constants but agreed upon acceptances of what is Now, for this system of mass and energy which is Now. Quantum Mechanics are actually glimpses into the real state of being, where we begin to see how time, light and gravity act in ways counter to our Now. It is, actually, much more relative than we realize. I’m sure there are brilliant physicists out there that an explain it all a hell of a lot better, and probably have.

That’s all for Now.

Going Backwards

I dreamed I was going backwards last night.

It wasn’t a bad feeling, going backwards, although I was in a car, actually occupying the driver seat, and it wasn’t my car, but belonged to my late father-in-law, and it was a Prius, which I think is beyond what he would own. He was a Jeep man, fond of hunting and fishing.

But let’s step back to the dream.

I dream a lot. I don’t know the averages for people. Dreaming is a self-reported matter. According to people who study people, people aren’t reliable about self-reporting matters, and those are the people who would know.

My pa-in-law died in December of 1991, an intelligent, personable man from southern WV. A friend recently died, prompting me to think of friends, pets and relatives who have left one plane for another, but I don’t think that’s what this dream was about.

I was visiting him at his home, which, being a dream, wasn’t the home where he usually lives. I think dream experts tell us that dream houses represent ourselves. So do cars.

Which brings me to the car. Visiting my in-law, Jim, I gathered I was to drive his silver Prius (not the latest generation, but the last generation of car…an interesting side-bar, which could merit more inspection for its meaning in the dream), following a person driving another Prius that belonged to Jim (and, huh, also silver, it WAS the latest model). I thought we were going fishing. Fishing with Jim was a relaxing, meditative pastime, and a favorite. I miss fishing with Jim.

So I’m sitting in the Prius driver seat, waiting for the other fellow, when the car starts rolling backward. Jim and the others notice, frantically motioning for me to stop it. Of course, that’s what I want to do, but I’m unfamiliar with the car and don’t know where the brake is.

Can you believe that?

I think that confusion over something as simple as braking a modern car could be something to ponder.

Meanwhile, the car rolls down the driveway and into the street as I attempt to figure out what to do. Then, it stops.

That was enough for Jim. Like a TV sitcom, the next scene shows me being driven in the other Prius, indignant about being stripped of my right to drive another’s car. And then I arrive at a business and discover that I’m to intern there. Mildly astonished, I’m dressed in the sort of California Silicon Valley business cas that I wore for years so that’s not a problem. I also brought another pair of shoes, so I can take off my Nikes and put on something dressier, which I do. Wow, what strange forethought.

This isn’t a start up but a plush and modern office space. A guy is there, playing with a radio controlled electric car, racing it over the carpet. I watch him for a few moments before deciding I need to pee. Going to the first bathroom, I realize that their symbols for the bathroom’s sex are foreign to me (and they’re symbols, not letters). After looking at one, I go to the other restroom. There, I hear someone urinating. I think it sounds like a man so I begin entering. Two women exiting the restroom jokingly re-direct me. One knows who I am and why I’m there, and tells me she’ll inform HR that I’m there.

An HR woman arrives and tells me to go with her. But I can’t, I want to get my shoes, and also, where are my sunglasses? Ah, my shoes are on my feet and my sunglasses are in my hand.

A dream trend is developing.

I apologize for being there, explaining that I didn’t know that my father-in-law was going to set me up to intern, and get ready to tell my work history – twenty years in the USAF, a few years with different medical device start-ups, and then NetworkICE, ISS and IBM that culminates in another twenty years of work. The HR woman asks if my wife is coming. No, why would my wife be coming? She’s hoping she was because she liked her the last time. What? There’s discussion about my wife and her name and when she was there. That’s when the dream slides out of my awareness.

And now I see it all. The dream is about my confusion. What confusion? I’m not certain. See, the essence of being confused is that you’re unclear ’bout what’s going on.

I bet why I’m confused will come to me later, after I sleep on it.

 

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